Tom Brokaw Quotes

Ours has not been a racially democratic society for 300 years.

Shame on America for the plight of the Negroes

He missed that whole civics lesson about slavery or Jim Crow

In the South, there is more overt racism. It's more willfully ignorant and brazen. But it's not as if by moving I'm going to be able to escape institutionalized racism. It's not as though my life won't be twisted and impacted by racism anymore. It will.

However, while we should certainly celebrate the demise of overt official racism, we must also critically examine where we are at this historical moment, recognize the many challenges ahead and reaffirm our commitment to making Brown v. Board a reality.

It's also important for those who promote those issues within the white community - the somewhat privileged community - to talk about issues affecting people of color.

Race in America is not a problem you can go over, or around or under. You've got to go through it.

Racism cannot be cured solely by attacking some of the results it produces, like discrimination in housing or in education.

By the 1960s, many of us believed that the Civil Rights Movement could eliminate racism in America during our lifetime. But despite significant progress, racism remains.

Until racial justice and freedom is a reality in this land, our union will remain profoundly imperfect.... The Negro is going to get justice or this society will be ripped apart.

Now in speaking like this, it doesn't mean that we're anti-white, but it does mean we're anti-exploitation, we're anti-degradation, we're anti-oppression. And if the white man doesn't want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us.

Happily, the days when overt racial discrimination and segregation were championed by social conservatives are long past.

We've done a very poor job at really reflecting on our legacy of racial inequality... You see it in the South, but it's everywhere.

We've come a long way from the days of Jim Crow, and yes, we elected a black president, but racism lives.

Many thought that the abolition of slavery, the end of Jim Crow, and the legislative progress of the Civil Rights Era, among other watershed moments, would have fundamentally done away with the racist structures that have long oppressed black people. However, we know that has been far from the case.

I wanted to remind myself and others of the old Jim Crow, so that we can remind ourselves that we're still living in the new Jim Crow. I feel it's important to dress in the fashion of the times.

I think race in America is a huge one. That's something that needs to be confronted, certainly.

I've been using the phrase Black Lives Matter quite a lot. I'm not saying that all lives don't matter, I'm just saying that right now black people need support and they need help because of the racism going on all around the world.

We need to have a more thoughtful, two-sided conversation about racial issues in this country.

The reality is we have allowed systemic racism to continue through all these years.

Race is a factor in everything.

While the old spiritual 'Slavery Chain Done Broke at Last' was sung by blacks in the hours following the Appomattox surrender, racism sadly continues to be a crippling national scourge.

While he was in the service, in the South and in Oklahoma, he was refused service at a couple of places where he was in uniform, and was told that African Americans, blacks, Negros, were not served. And in spite of that, I've never known a man who loved this country more than my father did.

I feel that there has been progress made since I was a boy on matters of race, but we have a long way to go.

I'm not trying to say that it never hurt or that I never felt its sting, but I can honestly say that I never blamed anybody for racism. I have considered it more of a manifestation of humanity's problem rather than my personal problem.